How do I remove repeated elements from ArrayList?

Question

I have an ArrayList of Strings, and I want to remove repeated strings from it. How can I do this?

Answer 1

If you have any control over the creation of your list then you might want to consider using a Map instead? Or you could put them in a Map from your ArrayList.

Answer 2

If you don't want duplicates in a Collection, you should consider why you're using a Collection that allows duplicates. The easiest way to remove repeated elements is to add the contents to a Set (which will not allow duplicates) and then add the Set back to the ArrayList:

ArrayList al = new ArrayList();
// add elements to al, including duplicates
HashSet hs = new HashSet();
hs.addAll(al);
al.clear();
al.addAll(hs);


Of course, this destroys the ordering of the elements in the ArrayList...

Answer 3

If you don't want duplicates, use a Set instead of a List. To convert a List to a Set you can use the following code:

// list is some List of Strings
Set<String> s = new HashSet<String>(list);

If really necessary you can use the same construction to convert a Set back into a List.

Answer 4

Although converting the ArrayList to a HashSet effectively removes duplicates, if you need to preserve insertion order, I'd rather suggest you to use this variant

// list is some List of Strings
Set<String> s = new LinkedHashSet<String>(list);

Then, if you need to get back a List reference, you can use again the conversion constructor.

Answer 5

As said before, you should use a class implementing Set interface instead of List to be sure of unicity of elements. If you have to keep the order of elements, the SortedSet interface can then be used ; the TreeSet class implements that interface.

Answer 6

Probably a bit overkill, but I enjoy this kind of isolated problem. :)

This code uses a temporary Set (for the uniqueness check) but removes elements directly inside the original list. Since element removal inside an ArrayList can induce a huge amount of array copying, the remove(int)-method is avoided.

public static <T> void removeDuplicates(ArrayList<T> list) {
    int size = list.size();
    int out = 0;
    {
        final Set<T> encountered = new HashSet<T>();
        for (int in = 0; in < size; in++) {
            final T t = list.get(in);
            final boolean first = encountered.add(t);
            if (first) {
                list.set(out++, t);
            }
        }
    }
    while (out < size) {
        list.remove(--size);
    }
}

While we're at it, here's a version for LinkedList (a lot nicer!):

public static <T> void removeDuplicates(LinkedList<T> list) {
    final Set<T> encountered = new HashSet<T>();
    for (Iterator<T> iter = list.iterator(); iter.hasNext(); ) {
        final T t = iter.next();
        final boolean first = encountered.add(t);
        if (!first) {
            iter.remove();
        }
    }
}

Use the marker interface to present a unified solution for List:

public static <T> void removeDuplicates(List<T> list) {
    if (list instanceof RandomAccess) {
        // use first version here
    } else {
        // use other version here
    }
}

EDIT: I guess the generics-stuff doesn't really add any value here.. Oh well. :)

Answer 7

public static <T> void removeDuplicates(ArrayList<T> aList){
    for (int i = 0; i < aList.size(); i++) {
     removeDuplicates(aList, aList.get(i));
    }
}